


Defective Shipping Device

by Aewin



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Body Horror, F/F, Helmsman, Power Imbalance, Suicide Attempt, Violence, Xeno, dubcon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-09
Updated: 2016-01-09
Packaged: 2018-05-12 19:23:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5677759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aewin/pseuds/Aewin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Condesce is kind of a shitty employer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Defective Shipping Device

**Author's Note:**

  * For [4eeldrive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/4eeldrive/gifts).



> the shippin here is W)(ORABL-E 8(
> 
> The sex in here is technically dubcon, but it's tilted towards rape because of power imbalances. Read with discretion.

“Like the new toys, roundhorns?”  
  
The Empress poses just like she does for all the propaganda — hips tilted, ass jutting out, rumblespheres thrust ahead of her grandiosely as if pointing towards new civilizations to conquer. Her jumbled, improbable array of body parts is only held up by a shrink-wrapped bodysuit and a sleek, shiny dual trident planted solidly on the floor. It’s probably named something incredibly stupid, like the ‘Impale-a-tron Fish-ty Thousand.’  
  
“You look like a two-caegar pailslut,” you croak out. Vocal maintenance has been sparse; it’s been a while since she visited, and you don’t have much other reason to talk.  
  
She snorts and drops the pose. “An' what does that make you, if you’re ridin' my tentacles for the rest of your shellish life? If you’re a pailslut’s pailslut, you really need to choose your insults carefully.” Her hand grips your chin with abnormal strength, forcing you to look into her eyes. It wouldn’t have taken much force anyways, given how much your body’s rotted away in the helm. You have the muscle strength of a two-sweep-old, save for your bulge and nook — she makes sure those are kept in “exshellent shape.” Really, you’re just a toy now — but you’re a toy that can fight back, on occasion. And you really,  _really_  hate it when she touches you like this.  
  
You take a guess and flick power through the wires burrowed into your arms, surging the  _Condescension_ forward abruptly, and manage a wheezy cackle as she loses her grip and falls to her knees, splashing into the shallow pool around you. It takes a moment — and she’s halfway up before you can muster it — but you hock a thin glob of spit smack-dab on her tiara. The Empress, on her knees for a rustblood. It would be hilarious, if the caste system actually meant anything behind the facade. She’s only this strong because she’s been around so long — she hasn't given anyone else the time to catch up to her strength. It definitely wasn't an 'accident' that Dualscar wound up dripping down the Highblood’s wall.   
  
Your smile doesn’t last long, though. She digs her unclipped nails into your torso and practically climbs you, putting enough of her weight on you that a handful of wires rip free from each arm, and the spinal support wires ripple and tense as they distribute the impact. Power sparks from the pockmarks before damped by the system, and if you weren’t in so much pain, you might be screaming at  _yourself_  for not taking the rare, if unlikely, chance to kill her while you could. But no, you’re screaming for other reasons, tears falling from your face as she finally —  _finally_ — finishes hauling herself up.  
  
The ship slows to a halt as she hisses in your ear, your own spit dripping off her tiara and sliding down your neck.  
  
“You pathetic. Little.  _Bitch_. I oughta fork you good and hard for that one, but I got a school of insurgents to exterminate. I’ll be seein' you soon though, and you'd betta be in a good mood when I come back. I’ve been itchin' for a bulge lately, and who else but my favorite ship to fill me up?” She steps back, fluttering her eyelashes, and blows a kiss at you.  
  
You should protest. Show some spirit, fight back, be a rebel. But right now, being peeled open at your ports, you can barely make out what she’s saying. You black out then, maybe? Or maybe it’s just a really long blink; when your eyes open again she’s stepping out of the pool and flinging open the doors — telling the helmstechs to “take care of her, girls, and install…"  _something_ , she says words there but you can’t…they’re…  
  
…gone.   
  
————  
  
It feels like hours before you’re slapped with extra suppressants and cut down, pockmarked limbs flopping as the techs dump you onto a cart for repairs. (And maybe it was — no. No, she wouldn't delay repairs, she needs her ship — _you_ — up and running.) The splashing of the water softens as you’re wheeled from the pit, and you laugh to yourself, maybe just a little madly, because the pit deserves an occasional break too, right?  
  
Maintenance is _wonderful._ When you were first installed, you screamed like you’d just taken a grub-block to the toe, but now  it's sweet relief to be laid bare, unthreaded from one arm-stump to another, to welcome in air that stings like touching ice to a sensitive fang, to experience life in your arms and legs even after sweeps of being eaten away at. The techs pop the trailing wires from your spinal supports, trim the worst of the scarring that obscures them from further care. They swab the insides of every missing chunk of your body with salves to disinfect you, paying extra care to the gaps in your arms and legs that were inflicted when your over-enthusiastic ‘employer’ went after you and the Psiioniic.

He  _nearly destroyed_ himself when the Signless died, taking a third of her soldiers at once (and quite a few onlookers — you hope, for his sake, that they helmed him before he learned that he killed almost as many as he saved). There wasn’t a ton of him left to go after that, to be fair; he was still curled in a ball on the ground, passed out in a crater, when you elbowed a guard in the head and used his keys to release the suppressant locks on you and your students.

They fled, and while the thought still makes you curl your lips at them in disgust, you can’t say you don’t understand. Their idol — the symbol of the rebels’ psionic strength — well, fuck it, they probably thought he was dead, and left without realizing that even a handful of half-trained psionics might have turned the tide. It's not like you hadn't taught them _well_. And they made it out alive (for how long? you can't imagine she didn't hunt them down), but you… you stayed, like the headstrong idiot you are. Or  _were_ , before she started chipping away at you.  
  
Her Imperious Heinousness threw the Psiioniic aside and cackled. It was  _infuriating_. The carefully-constructed walls hiding away the deaths of your friends and quadrantmates collapsed. You poured out your soul, psionics burning at your eyes, sparks flying for what felt like miles around you, and —   
  
Well. Obviously, if you had succeeded, you wouldn’t be here, having excess bio-material pared off your wires and being knitted back into the helm. No, you took down fewer than The Psiioniic did before she leapt at you, climbing a threshecutioner to tear you from the sky with cruel hands.

She crushed you under her heel and surrounded your neck with trident-tines  _just_ wide enough to spare the important bits that let you stay breathing — and barely alive. Then she was on her knees, snapping her bracelets onto your horns, fuzzing your thoughts and emotions and powers. She punctured your arms and legs with the claws you’ve become so familiar with, giving the techs quick access to wire you into a makeshift helms-pod for some favorite lackey of hers. You don't even remember the captain's name, only that you were dubbed  _Oblivion_.  
  
And then, when the Psiioniic overloaded himself again, rushing to Alternia to crush the Summoner’s Rebellion, she called for a replacement.  
  
You, of course — because fuck your life.  
  
————  
  
You try to overload yourself again that night, and she comes storming into the block with cerulean splashed across her suit.   
  
“You tryn’a krill me here? I’m very busy.”  
  
Your ports are still smoking a bit, but you roll your eyes anyways. Alarms are still blaring across the ship, amplifying the nightmarish headache you give yourself with every failed attempt at ending this miserable existence. “No, I’m trying to kill  _myself_. " You nod towards her hands. " I see that by ‘busy’ you mean you’re busy working your way up the castes. Blues are new. They're catching on that the system is hoofbeastshit, I take it?”  
  
She sighs, tut-tutting as she pats your cheek. “No, no. Just an outlier that needed some guidance.” She smiles at you, fingers running through what’s left of your hair after being cropped up and scorched.  
  
“Not this crap again.”  
  
“Oh, shell. Don't pretend you don't like it. Everyone envies you, y'know. I have a hard enough time makin' sure people don’t try to assassinate you, much less makin' sure you don’t krill yourshelf.” Her lips press against your temple, and her hands follow your remaining curves down to your waist, painting blood over your suit.   
  
Her tone darkens your vision and makes you grit your teeth. You imagine killing a million versions of her, in a million universes, in a million different ways — snuffing them out like candles, and ohhh, it feels so  _good_. The rage and satisfaction surges through you, accelerating the ship and sending your bulge writhing with bloodlust.

Damn, and they _just_ changed your suit.  
  
_Deep breaths, Damara. Keep it cool._ You force yourself to quirk an eyebrow and act like you don't give a shit that she's touching you, or that she thinks you're aroused by something _other_ than the thought of skewering her on a pike. “Oh? Who is this mysterious ‘they?’ I’ll have to find them so I can help them along.”

(You _do_ give a shit. You really would like some help getting this over with. Maybe one day there will be a coup, someone will get onboard. But then again, if someone got  _to_  you, they've probably dealt with her...and you might be willing to help out rebels again, even as a helmsman, if it meant rooting out every last supporter of hers and cutting them down until you died after a long, spiteful life. Yeah, you'd like that. You'd like that a _lot_.)  
  
“No, no, dear. Can’t have my precious little super-ship burnin' out on me again, you’re far too valuable. What you an' I need is a little… _relaxation_.” A hand cups around your squirming bulge and squeezes as emphasis. “After all, I was just sayin' yesterday that I needed some down-time. Sorry I was rough with you outside of playtime, it was  _such_ a horrible day, what with all those insurgents runnin' about, muckin' up my plans…but I’ve caught 'em hook, line, an' sinker, so we can have some proper fun now!” She sounds so pleased, grinning against you, grinding her nook against you through that suit…god, but you can almost hate her, taste it good and black and  _proper_.

_Almost_. As amazing as you are, your hands are quite literally tied when it comes to her, so blackflirting isn't an option.  
  
She kisses you while unzipping your suits, fumbling when she gets to her own, yet trying not to break the kiss. You can’t quite tell if the snag of something fleshy in her mouth is fish, or… well, given the cerulean… best not to think about it. It doesn’t taste  _horrible_ , so you just kiss, and try to forget.   
  
The suits only come down far enough to expose your 'useful' bits, and, as usual, pheromones have dictated that you’re the one coming out to play. Another reason the hemospectrum and propaganda is worth jack shit. Thanks to the angle you’ve only  _seen_  her bulges out a few times, but they’re a pain in the ass to work with, what with all the fronds and shit, and being on the shorter side. It’s easier when they’re retracted like this, with her nook splayed open and spongy, small frills of bulge-tips poking out the top.  
  
You hate to admit it, but those fronds mean that purely physically, she’s the best fuck you’ve ever had.   
  
But the emotions, they’re more than a little messed up. There’s that touch of almost-black, but with too much hatred of the wrong kind, and too little ability to fight her, to go full-pitch. And then there’s the fact that she’s totally fucked in the pan and seems to think you’re some sort of flushed/pale custom-made fuckdoll, ordered straight from Pail-A-Palooza with one-day shipping (shipping provided, conveniently, by yourself — aren't you just the handy little multi-tool?). But she can't even do that right; she treats you like shit, and doesn't have a clue what a red quadrant would look like if she stumbled over a giant red heart.

She grabs on to the wires above your arms, taking some of the force off of you, and that's about the best thing she's ever good for even if it means you have to fuck her. Your bulge slips instinctually into her nook, the frigid squish making you clench and wriggle your hips and thighs as you acclimate to the temperature of a seadweller.

"Mmm, that's it, darlin', you're so flippin'  _cute_  when you wriggle like that!" Her nook ripples around you, fronds brushing over the sensitive base of your bulge. The helm has made your body a jumble of over- and under-sensitivity, and that's one spot that never fails to make you shiver, even when you hate, hate,  _hate_  that she can make you react at all.  
  
Part of you wants to resist her as long as you can, but honestly, you'd rather get it over with. You chant your name inside your head — _Damara, Damara, your name is Damara_ — because it's one of the little things you have left, that you've been able to lie about, and it takes you away from what's happening while she whispers irrelevant things in your ear and wraps a leg around you, hitching herself up, pulling you in deeper, undulating her hips to tease your squirming bulge.

In the end sheer friction helps you end it, and you spill over inside of her, biting your lip to avoid giving  _her_  the pleasure of thinking  _she's_  given  _you_ pleasure. Material gushes into the water around the helm as she wriggles off of you, enough that she must have climaxed too. Your colors are too close for you to be able to tell. You wonder which one of you came first, but it's a moot point because thank the eldritch terrors, it was over with fast.  
  
She sighs happily and pats you on the head. "That's a good pet, dearie. Such good stress relief. You oughta be glad I'm so good about helpin' you out." She plants a kiss on your head and you hear her zip up her suit. You even out your breath and keep your eyes closed, because she seems to bother you less when you don't make eye contact. You rarely have the strength of will to fight her immediately after this. Given a little while, you can just pretend it didn't happen, since everything goes right back to the same hell it was before.  
  
Well, most of the time. This time she doesn’t zip you back up when she leaves.

Again, fuck your life.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading my fic! I hope you enjoyed it. If you'd like to share it on tumblr, the post is [here](http://solluxisms.tumblr.com/post/137652046754/defective-shipping-device-aewin-homestuck) \- or you can check out [my (nsfw) tumblr](http://solluxisms.tumblr.com) in general, which contains as many helmsmen and Captors as I can find.


End file.
